Research Ethics and the Social Scientist

There are many angles on why an understanding of ethics and social science research must go hand in hand. While ethics is very important, perhaps US Law and the history of the study of human subjects are more compelling reasons for ethical examination of your research plan; researchers who study human subjects must first pass their research plan by the Institutional Review Board (the IRB) for approval. Carleton has a very good IRB quiz to help you determine whether your research will require IRB approval. Researchers at other institutions will need to pass their own IRB approval and all Institutional Review Boards have their own interpretations of the federal guidelines as well as institutional standards.

The principle goals of the IRB are to ensure that researchers understand and uphold the following two standards dictated by federal law:

Human subjects should not be placed at undue risk;

Subjects should give uncoerced, informed consent to their participation in the research.

That's great, but in the recent past, the world has become much more complicated with regard to privacy.

Where is the boundary between public and private? What is digital citizenship? At what point is someone in danger of being placed at undue risk? What is informed consent on the internet? What are the ethics of studying Wikileaks released material?

These are excellent questions which require more resources to help you determine for yourself whether your research idea borders on sketchy ethical ground (and weather you can do something to mitigate the risk or if you should pick up another project idea.)

Although federal rules govern academic study of human subjects, universities, which approve professors’ research methods, have different interpretations of the guidelines. “The rules were made for a different world, a pre-Facebook world,” said Samuel D. Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, who uses Facebook to explore perception and identity. “There is a rule that you are allowed to observe public behavior, but it’s not clear if online behavior is public or not.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/style/17facebook.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2>;

Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics"...a collection of essays by veteran online researchers who provide testimonial illustrations as to how traditional research methods may be modified for effective online research as well as identify and discuss the critical issues and dilemmas encountered." Published in (2004)

Oxford Internet Institute "Our research faculty, academic visitors and research associates are engaged in a variety of research projects covering social, economic, political, legal, industrial, technical and ethical issues of the Internet in everyday life, governance and democracy, science and learning and shaping the Internet."

Berkelely Online Relationship Lab "We are an interdisciplinary research team from the School of Information and the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley. Our work focuses on the social psychology of relationship formation through computer-mediated communication systems."